"HELLO EXCHANGE?"

Phoney Days
By RAJBIR DESWAL
Why we shouldn't sulk about mobiles?
No, it wasn't like it is today when you dial a number and get the person on the line. You had to call up `the exchange' those days. Not the bourses where stocks and shares go up and down, but the telephone exchange.
“Hello? Exchange? Please give me 272.“ There was a precise number you asked the operator to connect you to. If he or she was in a pleasant mood, the person would ask, “Urgent or ordinary?“ According to your response, you would be asked to hold the line. Once on the line, in the middle of a conversation, the operator's voice would butt in: “Three minutes over!“ To which your response, if you wanted to continue chatting, would be: “Please extend the time.“ It was not a statement; it was a submission. “Khatam karo jee!“ the operator would again caution you. And before you could wind up your tete-a-tete, you would hear the `toon-toon-toon' sound of a `disconnection'.
The dial tone also confirmed that the phone had a beating heart. Those days the phone rang with only one tune: `Tarran-tarran“. You also couldn't adjust the volume of your phone. These were also the days when you wouldn't be bothered by a phone ringing away with no one picking it up on the other side. It was the operator and the operator alone who had the right to listen in and tell you that nobody was picking up the phone.
If you had to talk to someone living in another town, you needed to book a `trunk call'.
This system did not, as many callers thought, refer to any elephant metaphor but was analogous to a tree trunk and its many branches. Initially, you would have to walk up to the telephone exchange or the post office to book a trunk call. The wait there could be anything up to three to four hours. An international call sometimes took two to three days. Booking a trunk call over the phone came later.
The real trauma a phone-owner experienced was when he was told to `please' call so-and-so neighbour as “it was an emergency“. Calling the neighbour, listening to him talk (who, at times, betrayed no expressions that may have pointed to any `emergency'), and offering a cup of tea after the call was done were collateral damage that came with having a telephone in the house. What made matters worse was the dreaded request: “Could I make a call?“ Any payment in money or kind was seldom made.
Cross-connections provided the comical interludes. But they were a headache when one was talking about a serious matter -like an illness, or a recipe, or sweet nothings. People today talk about the 2G scam and spam text messages in this age of mobile phones. I say much better these than those hoary days when telephony itself was a giant scam.
Rajbir Deswal is a Delhi-based writer The views expressed by the author are personal

ALSO AT

http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/PUBLICATIONS/HT/HC/2011/09/22/ArticleHtmls/Phoney-days-22092011008006.shtml?Mode=1

Love me, love my buffalo! मेरी भैंस को डंडा क्यूँ मारा ?

Love me, love my buffalo!
by Rajbir Deswal
मेरी भैंस को डंडा क्यूँ मारा ?
Nowhere on the earth do people love – rather worship — their buffaloes like in Haryana. After the formal greeting of ‘Jai Ram ji ki’, the first topic to be mentioned is invariably either the rains or the milk supply by the buffaloes.

The buffalo is the ‘neighbour’s envy and owner’s pride’. A Haryanvi will be consumed by mosquitoes, get infected, have malarial shivers, but will protect his buffaloes with huge nets, tucked all around with no letting in of machhars.

The owner pampers his buffalo to the extent of not only listening to its heart-beats, but also receiving its emotional vibes. Watching her being bathed with tender affection can make the best loved person jealous of the Black Beauty. No exaggeration then that a hardcore Haryanavi would want to become a buffalo in his next life.

Haryanvis may make their children eat less in the lean period of their earnings, but will empty all their treasures of the best fodder and gram floor, oilseed waste and cottonseed sprouts for the buffalo, for it helps to have her udders ‘filled to the brims’ with quality milk.

Remember Udham Singh (Munish Makhija) – The bald, lanky Haryanavi sitting on a cot with a lathi in hand and a mooing buffalo in the frame of an ad? This depiction has more sense than symbolism.

Even the jokes and pithy Haryanvi idioms and sayings have enough buffalo blood flowing in them. For example, a buffalo entering the water (Bhains pani main jana ) or going up on the canal bank (Bhains patdee pe chadh jana) entail being fined for the unscrupulous but pardonable act on the part of the buffalo.

The Haryanvis sometime back stopped feeding su-babool fodder to buffaloes for they believed it had caused hairfall on the tail of their beautiful pet.

A male calf being born was not a welcome thing for Haryanavis till some time back; and only Yamraj – the death-supervising deity – was seen riding it. But now they have gainfully employed them as draft animals – fit to pull their carts.

There is a saying to the effect that you will have only male calves born to your buffaloes, for the female calves would be stolen away to be replaced by males, if you were sleeping on the care of your buffalo.

Interestingly, the buffaloes recognise their khoonta – stake or tether – in case there was a dispute over their ownership. Even the police employed khoonta-parade to settle the issue between a buffalo owner and a buffalo thief. In this case, the buffalo could without being guided, go up to her tether instinctively, to make a case for its owner.

444444444An interesting joke to end it all. A young, debonair male calf challenged a lazy, old he-buffalo to a race. The ‘infirm and inadequate’ Old Hat replied “Na bhai, baithe-baithe jugaalee karte kaan hilaate rehne ka muqabala karna ho to aaja” – No Sir, if you are willing to compete in the art of just shaking your ears while cud-chewing, then come on!n

Honking for all occasions !

Honking for all occasions
By: Rajbir Desweal
Disciplined drivers in many countries rarely honk, except in disgust or to sound an alarm. Nearer home, the honk is a signature tune, and can be amended to suit every occasion. A honk of the highest pitch and tone, blowing to the winds all norms and rules, could shatter golden silence and ruin all serenity and civility on the roads.
To get the cow out of the way, to get a pretty girl turn your way. Whatever the reason, there’s an apt honk. There’s music in it, if you will only hear it with the right ears, there’s a honk for every occasion.

But hello, why look down on something so widely accepted on our streets. What is a ride on our road without the tee-tee, pauwn-pauwn? Let’s just plunge right in and join the mob, go honking all the way, for it is also eminently needed to establish right of way. It’s a malady, and it’s also its own remedy!

For music-loving people like us who have so many ragas, whose music is made to suit various moods and climes, honking is expression too; there’s a tune for every season. We’re honkers unlimited, and we find a honk to match the mood and the reason.

For marriage, there is a honk. For a funeral, there’s another honk. If the light turns green, honk. To announce you’ve arrived, honk. For overtaking, just honk hard. To call a friend from the flat on the fourth floor, honk harder. To match a beat on the stereo system, honk. To caution a blind man crossing the road, honk. And to get the cow to make way, honk.

And the list doesn’t end there. To sound a victory, honk. To get a pretty young thing to turn your way, honk. To protest while stuck in a jam, there’s a honk-chorus. On a blind turn, there is a legally justified, PWD-desired, long honk.

There’s a euphoric honk, a guilty honk. There’s an audacious honk and a sadistic one. There is an answer-honk to a question-honk. There is a musical honk, and an unmusical honk.

There’s ‘make way in a hurry’ honk, the ‘I’m fed up’ honk. There’s a merry honk and a threatening honk. There a honk just to honk in your face and push you up the wall too, the ‘Bas, waise hee’ honk.

So since you cannot get above the din, just join in. Happy honking!

BEWARE! Your Dreams can be Recorded Now!

What if the dreams could be recorded on video!
BY:RAJBIR DESWAL
Once dreams were recorded, we could even have a modern-day Sigmund Freud set to work on them
How nice it would be if we could record a dream on video!
A patent for a dream recorder, please
I read somewhere, and now I forget where, that ideas are invited to go into a science fiction bank. Here is my idea. I’d like to patent it.

Imagine what it might be, if dreams could be recorded! How revealing it might be, to be able to see the murderer plotting his crime in his head, even as he sleeps.

I could have seen the man plot the murder of my client-yes, I work as a lawyer-and perhaps the dream could also be used as evidence of sorts in court?

A dream recorder might serve as evidence of intention, as the murderer had been plotting away his path to riches.

How nice it would be if we could record a dream on video! So what if the dreams were dreamt by a jaundiced eye, and were recorded in a device not usually used for such a purpose. These could be used as arguments against using dreams in the courtroom.

The science fiction idea could be grabbed by people in research and development in a technology firm, and who knows? It might well someday become a reality.

Was not the cellphone or the TV an idea before the reality? And who, living a few centuries ago, might have imagined them possible? Dream interpreters would lose their jobs, if my idea became reality.

Some people might go hiding, putting the videos in ‘safe custody’ so that others would not have access to them-for obvious reasons, you see!

Some dreamers would sleep under showers, to not let a single wet dream make it into the recorder? Still others who stumble on hidden treasures might seek police protection for all their wealth.

The Dream Recorder would come with user-friendly devices. Like auto-start of equipment at specific points in the dream, auto-off where the dreamer treads slippery territory.

Conferencing while recording dreams, so people could interact while at it, could also be considered. If the dream is an enjoyable one for the viewer (and I mean not the dreamer but his audience), its time could be extended.

If the dream is particularly unpleasant or erotic, the device could insert a warning: ‘unfit for toddlers’.

Once dreams were recorded, we could even have a modern-day Sigmund Freud set to work on them: what depths of psychological insight could be gleaned, from recurring images in dreams!

The role of snakes and spiders, of fire and water could be ascertained, if they reveal patterns.

Why are some people always late? And why do some people dream of examinations? What does it mean, when you dream that you are left alone in a jungle?

Why are you running in a dream? And why do you suddenly realise that you’re barefoot? Where did the clothes go? Why are you suddenly all in the raw?

ll these and more could be revealed, statistically and with scientific precision.

Dreams are not to be dismissed. Holy scriptures are replete with instances when dreams have foretold what was still to be.

Did not Caesar disregard the warning about the ides of March? “He is a dreamer. Let us leave him. Pass,” he had said, without letting the warning mean anything at all.

So here you are now, at the end of my dream! The dream of Rajbir Deswal.